I stand in my tub, underneath a leaky showerhead. The water comes slanted, awkward; but I don't mind, as long as it's hot. I need the heat, the sensation, the feeling. I need it to be there, to wash over me, to run over my shoulder and down my back. It does, and I am thankful.
As the steam rises up from the tub floor, from my body, I find it difficult to breath; it's choking me. I can't inhale, and my lungs feel labored. The humidity is strangling me - or is it the world? Is it this shower, or is the the conditions that await me behind that vinyl curtain? Anxiety disorders, sleep deprivation, expectations, and never enough time to fit life into living.
I sit beneath the spray, and I close my eyes. The water pounds against the back of my head, where my skull meets spine, and I feel peace. I imagine myself a fetus, enclosed in the womb of my mother - warm, cradled, and so unsure of what I will become. I wonder if it even matters: being something, proving your capability. I'd rather just love and be loved, to fall in love with the void of everything we're not. That's where the charm is, anyhow; in the little ways we fall short, in how we trip and stumble - wobbling like babies, unsure of how to manage their tiny legs. People laugh, we laugh, it's beautiful. I want to be beatiful. Not something meaningful. I just want to be beautiful, in everything that I'm not.
